Abstract
This paper discusses and illustrates how artificial societies created within computers may be used to perform experiments which address significant issues in the philosophy of time and ktowledge. It is specifically targeted at the concept of foreknowledge, an agent’s unmediated and accurate (if partial) awareness of future facts or events. It asks the following preliminary questions as they may be posed in the context of an artificial society: can agents in a deterministic world have choice? is it possible for agents to have foreknowledge? can agents with foreknowledge have choice? Then the main question is posed: in which circumstances is foreknowledge beneficial or detrimental to a society of (rational) agents?
A limited but particularly interesting special case of the main question is whether foreknowledge of their own deaths is beneficial or detrimental to an agent society. An experimental interpretation of this special case is offered.
A feature of the approach taken is that the generation of a world history is viewed as a process of solving a constraint. satisfaction problem.
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© 1997 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Doran, J. (1997). Foreknowledge in Artificial Societies. In: Conte, R., Hegselmann, R., Terna, P. (eds) Simulating Social Phenomena. Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems, vol 456. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-03366-1_36
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-03366-1_36
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